Another portion of the novel that contributes to the humanitarian aspect is the science and study of vampires that Neville does. He uses the library in his city to study vampires, and he realizes that they are essentially humans who are sick with something. He sees them as beings who suffer from a deadly and horrific disease due to his scientific studies. He gains his hope from this discovery and wants to realize that it is not necessarily their fault that they are beings that are following their animalistic whims. He gains his humanity back in some way by understanding that they are sick beings and that he is allowed to sympathize with their problems. He uses science instead of terror and superstition to ground himself in his reality, and becomes interested in the vampire plague even though he has no clear idea on what has happened. His science leads him to make choices that would be questionable to people if they were still there.
Neville is ignorant to them being living, breathing beings. He sees them as dangerous creatures that could potentially destroy him if given the chance, and that he needs to study and kill as many of them as he possibly can. He uses his scientific study to kill them, which is about as far from human as you can get. Science is meant to help and heal, but in this instance he loses touch with his human side to kill those he is interested in. He becomes a hardened man who is unable to feel anything but destruction. How is it possible to feel sympathy for a being while also wishing to destroy every single one of those beings? It seems as if it is something contradictory, but in reality it could possibly stem from him wanting peace as well as wanting the vampires to be at peace.
There are definite implications to the idea that science started this vampire plague across the nation, and likely resulted from destruction and chaos in the previous world before this destruction and chaos. This novel seems to be a clear attack on the implications of using deadly warfare on other countries due to massive issues that it creates, and that only humanity can begin to save a society that is centered around science, death, and destruction. Science is not something to be worshiped and is actually something that aids in the death of many people that are cared for. Neville uses his science he learned to empower himself in a way that he believes empowers his humanity, but it leads him to be a more destructive person instead of what he wishes to be: a man who is better than the problems around him.
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